{"id":1576,"date":"2018-08-30T12:28:04","date_gmt":"2018-08-30T16:28:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=1576"},"modified":"2018-10-28T13:46:03","modified_gmt":"2018-10-28T17:46:03","slug":"horses-were-better-than-tractors-let-me-tell-you-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=1576","title":{"rendered":"“HORSES WERE BETTER THAN TRACTORS” (LET ME TELL YOU WHY)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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HORSES WERE BETTER THAN TRACTORS<\/p>\n

(LET ME TELL YOU WHY)<\/div>\n
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alan skeoch<\/div>\n
august 2018<\/div>\n
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PLOWING IS AS ANCIENT AS CIVILIZATION\u2026MAYBE 6,000 YEARS OLD<\/div>\n
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\u201cThis painting on \u00a0an Egyptian tomb shows a farmer encouraging two skinny cows to pull a \u00a0tiny stir plow.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cStir plow?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cYep\u2026early plows were really just tough tree roots \u00a0fashioned \u00a0to a dull point.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cHow could that plow cut sod?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cIt couldn\u2019t. \u00a0 Ancient plowmen \u00a0only plowed easy fields\u2026no sod\u2026closest thing to bare ground.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cBare ground doesn\u2019t grow much \u00a0food.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cYou got that right\u2026world population was small\u2026farmers just tilled the tops of \u00a0the \u00a0hills where a stir plough<\/div>\n
would work.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cDo you mean those \u00a0rich fertile valleys \u00a0were just left \u00a0to the weeds.?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cThink so. \u00a0No doubt some poor sap was trying to grow wheat among the \u00a0weeds.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cMust have been good healthy work.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cBad joke. \u00a0 Most people died young\u202635 would be old. \u00a0Do \u00a0you believe that?”<\/div>\n
\u201cNope. \u00a0 You are like \u00a0Trump and \u00a0make up a lot of \u00a0bull shit.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cTake \u00a0it for what it\u2019s worth.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u2018I\u2019ve got better things to do than read \u00a0your drivel, Alan.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cBugger off and do it then.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cJust kidding\u2026\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cHuman \u00a0beings in western \u00a0Europe came down off the tips of the hills \u00a0when the \u00a0medieval two furrow \u00a0wheeled plow was invented.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cMore food\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cFat people started to appear in large numbers.\u201d<\/div>\n
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This \u00a0is \u00a0Herbert La Thanque\u2019s 1895 painting titled the last Furrow. \u00a0Note how the plow has two wheels \u00a0and curved \u00a0moldboard\u2026and \u00a0a pair of metal coulters \u00a0to get the slice \u00a0of turf \u00a0started.<\/div>\n
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\u201cI can\u2019t see all those \u00a0things, what the hell is the plowman doing, saying \u00a0his prayers?\u201d<\/div>\n
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\u201cSeems in \u00a0a \u00a0bit of \u00a0a tangle.\u201d<\/div>\n
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\u201cEven \u00a0you don\u2019t know \u00a0what he\u2019s \u00a0doing.\u201d<\/div>\n
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\u201cAm I supposed to be \u00a0an art critic?\u201d<\/div>\n
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\u201cLet\u2019s get to the point of this \u00a0little story. \u00a0You said it was \u00a0about FRANK FREEMAN\u2026Get on with it.\u201d<\/div>\n
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\u201cHis story could \u00a0 make you cry\u2026that\u2019s what it did to me long long ago.<\/div>\n
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\u201cI don\u2019t bawl \u2026\u201d<\/div>\n
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\u201cWe\u2019ll see…<\/div>\n
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FRANK \u00a0FREEMAN\u2019S HOMESPUN PHILOSOPHY<\/div>\n
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My uncle, Frank Freeman, was a farmer on hardscrabble land \u00a0in Erin \u00a0Township. \u00a0He was also a \u00a0homespun philosopher, \u00a0\u201cAlan, I loved plowing with horses\u2026better than \u00a0plowing \u00a0with a tractor.<\/div>\n
Horses \u00a0had to have \u00a0a rest after a few furrows \u00a0and that meant I had a \u00a0rest as \u00a0well. \u00a0I could \u00a0sit on a \u00a0fence \u00a0rail \u00a0and admire my plowing or better still \u00a0admire our farm\u2026see \u00a0the birds, the butterflies,<\/div>\n
the pillow clouds, the \u00a0rain clouds. \u00a0Horses made farming romantic. \u00a0 Tractors \u00a0never \u00a0stop. No chance to sit on a \u00a0fence rail. \u00a0Saddest day \u00a0on our \u00a0farm was \u00a0the day \u00a0old Dick and \u00a0Dolly were<\/div>\n
put out to pasture. \u00a0Got a Massey 55\u2026big \u00a0red machine that ripped across \u00a0the farm leaving \u00a0tracks like \u00a0a herd \u00a0of dinosaurs. \u00a0 Loved my horses, \u00a0Alan.”<\/div>\n
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Uncle Frank \u00a0loved his land as well. \u00a0One day \u00a0I remember well. \u00a0 His doctor suspected Frank had some \u00a0kind of \u00a0bad \u00a0cancer\u2026perhaps terminal. What \u00a0do you suppose \u00a0he did\u2026slacked off<\/div>\n
on the couch beside the wood \u00a0stove. \u00a0Spent his \u00a0last days \u00a0in bed. \u00a0Nope. \u00a0Uncle Frank \u00a0took what he \u00a0thought was \u00a0one last walk around his farm.<\/div>\n
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” The plowing was over and the furrows less sharp. \u00a0Storms had worked them \u00a0down. Fields were<\/div>\n
ready for winter. \u00a0Figured my time \u00a0had come as it does for all of us. \u00a0 If I was going into \u00a0some \u00a0hospital for a spell, \u00a0I wanted \u00a0something nice to dream \u00a0about. \u00a0Memorized every step \u00a0I took that day<\/div>\n
The \u00a0crop fields with those upturned soil, the pastures where \u00a0the cattle grazed, \u00a0then skirted \u00a0the swamps, marvelled the maple bush, and sat now and then \u00a0on the \u00a0granite boulders<\/div>\n
rolled smooth beneath a long gone glacier, \u00a0We moved those \u00a0boulders to the fencerow\u2026harder \u00a0for \u00a0Ted and me than it had \u00a0been for that glacier. \u00a0Sat on these boulders often while<\/div>\n
Dick and Dolly got their wind back. A couple of Crows followed me \u00a0at a distance or<\/div>\n
were \u00a0they those near human ravens. \u00a0Most of the wild animal had gone to bed for the winter. \u00a0The pack of wild dogs that cornered me in summer were gone, perhaps to early graves. \u00a0People\u2026city<\/div>\n
people \u00a0dump pets they do not want on farm \u00a0roadways. \u00a0Cruel death follows. \u00a0 Alan, I thought of \u00a0so many tings\u2026so many good times\u2026some bad times. \u00a0I \u00a0was ready\u201d (Note: paraphrased from memory)<\/div>\n
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\u00a0\u00a0As it turned \u00a0out Uncle \u00a0Frank \u00a0 did not have cancer. \u00a0He had a reprieve.<\/div>\n
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\u00a0 His \u00a0comment had a profound \u00a0effect on me. \u00a0Unknown \u00a0to him, unwatched \u00a0by anyone, I also \u00a0walked those fields savouring the luxury of being at<\/div>\n
one \u00a0with the land. \u00a0I did \u00a0not need \u00a0a \u00a0physical reminder of that moment but I took one anyway. \u00a0A piece of limestone about the size of a \u00a0tennis \u00a0ball was \u00a0retrieved \u00a0from a field Uncle Frank had \u00a0plowed<\/div>\n
a while \u00a0ago. \u00a0That piece \u00a0of limestone served \u00a0notice that the land had \u00a0once been covered in 2 kilometres \u00a0of \u00a0ice and \u00a0millions \u00a0of years \u00a0before that this land had been located in the \u00a0tropics \u00a0where billions<\/div>\n
of little creatures swam and died\u2026their bodies \u00a0percolating down and compressed into soft rock that Uncle Frank\u2019s plow had brought to the surface once again. \u00a0All this served notice that my life is just a temporary<\/div>\n
piece of living matter on the surface of the earth. \u00a0And \u00a0the earth seems to be eternal. \u00a0Not so, of course, for even \u00a0this black \u00a0furrow in time will disappear into the arms of the universe. \u00a0Walking those fields \u00a0on that day was<\/div>\n
a \u00a0powerful experience never to \u00a0be forgotten.<\/div>\n
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Enough of that.<\/div>\n
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PLOWS THAT HELPED TO FEED US\u2026AND ENABLED US TO TAKE CONTROL OF THE \u00a0EARTH<\/div>\n
(FOR GOOD OR ILL)<\/div>\n
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\u201ctake a \u00a0look here\u2026a medieval single moldboard plow\u2026on a wheel with a coulter to cut the \u00a0sod of those fertile \u00a0rivervaley\u2026all<\/div>\n
chiselled into a \u00a0hardwood log.\u201d<\/div>\n
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\u201cand \u00a0here\u2019s another.\u201d<\/div>\n
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\u201cgetting \u00a0a little tired \u00a0of \u00a0those wheels plows, \u00a0Alan, can\u2019t we \u00a0shift gears\u2026talk about something more<\/div>\n
modern.”<\/div>\n
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\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cBank robbing is more of a sure thing than farming.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u2015\u00a0Allan Dare Pearce<\/a>,\u00a0Paris in April<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
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bank-robbery<\/a>,\u00a0farming<\/a>,\u00a0jobs<\/a>,\u00a0work<\/a><\/div>\n
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TASK \u00a0FOR ANY READER WHO HAS \u00a0GOT THIS FAR\u201d<\/div>\n
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WHICH \u00a0QUOTE BELOW HITS YOU THE HARDEST?<\/div>\n
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\u201cBank robbing is more of a sure thing than farming.\u201d\u00a0
\u2015\u00a0Allan Dare Pearce<\/a>,\u00a0Paris in April<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
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bank-robbery<\/a>,\u00a0farming<\/a>,\u00a0jobs<\/a>,\u00a0work<\/a><\/div>\n
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\u201cAs my daddy said, soil is the basis of everything.\u201d\u00a0
\u2015\u00a0Michael Lee West<\/a>,\u00a0She Flew the Coop: A Novel Concerning Life, Death, Sex and Recipes in Limoges, Louisiana<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
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farming<\/a>,\u00a0gardening<\/a><\/div>\n
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\u201cAs a working definition of art, I lean toward Tolstoy’s: “Art is a human activity having for it’s purpose the transmission to other of the highest and best feelings to which mankind has risen.” It seems to me that, regarding agrarian art, the farther it moves away from the natural world, especially when the main goal is money profits, the more difficult it becomes for it to reflect “the highest and best feelings” of humanity. The same is true of, of course, of agriculture itself. The farther it tries to remove itself from nature in search of money, the more it moves away from the highest and healthiest kinds of food.\u201d\u00a0
\u2015\u00a0Gene Logsdon<\/a>,\u00a0The Mother of All Arts: Agrarianism and the Creative Impulse<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
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agrarianism<\/a>,\u00a0art<\/a>,\u00a0farming<\/a><\/div>\n
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\u201cI should understand the land, not as a commodity, an inert fact to be taken for granted, but as an ultimate value, enduring and alive, useful and beautiful and mysterious and formidable and comforting, beneficent and terribly demanding, worthy of the best of man’s attention and care… [My father] insisted that I learn to do the hand labor that the land required, knowing–and saying again and again–that the ability to do such work is the source of a confidence and an independence of character that can come no other way, not by money, not by education.\u201d\u00a0
\u2015\u00a0Wendell Berry<\/a>,\u00a0The Hidden Wound<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
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farming<\/a>,\u00a0land<\/a>,\u00a0self-sufficiency<\/a><\/div>\n
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\u201cWe have neglected the truth that a good farmer is a craftsman of the highest order, a kind of artist.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>
\u2015\u00a0<\/span>Wendell Berry<\/a>,\u00a0<\/span>The Gift of Good Land: Further Essays Cultural and Agricultural<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
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\u201cA farm is an irregular patch of nettles bounded by short-term notes, containing a fool and his wife who didn\u2019t know enough to stay in the city.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>
\u2015\u00a0<\/span>S.J. Perelman<\/a><\/div>\n
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\u201cAll good farmers become connoisseurs of dirt and dust.\u201d\u00a0
\u2015\u00a0David Mas Masumoto<\/a>,\u00a0Epitaph for a Peach: Four Seasons on My Family Farm<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
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farming<\/a><\/div>\n
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\u201cI know this place like I know the calluses on my hands.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>
\u2015\u00a0<\/span>Brenda Sutton Rose<\/a>,\u00a0<\/span>Dogwood Blues<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
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\u201cCultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bonds.\u201d\u00a0
\u2015\u00a0Thomas Jefferson<\/a><\/div>\n
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farmers<\/a>,\u00a0farming<\/a>,\u00a0independence<\/a>,\u00a0patriotism<\/a>,\u00a0virtue<\/a><\/div>\n
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\u201cThere’s relief in not having to be outside. No gardening, no mowing the lawn, no tyranny of long daylight hours to fill with productive activity. We rip through summer, burning the hours and tearing up the land. Then snow comes like a bandage, and winter heals the wounds.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>
\u2015\u00a0<\/span>Jerry Dennis<\/a><\/div>\n
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\u201cAwake! arise! the hour is late!<\/span>
Angels are knocking at thy door!<\/span>
They are in haste and cannot wait,<\/span>
And once departed come no more.<\/span>
Awake! arise! the athlete’s arm<\/span>
Loses its strength by too much rest;<\/span>
The fallow land, the untilled farm<\/span>
Produces only weeds at best.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>
\u2015\u00a0<\/span>Henry Wadsworth Longfellow<\/a>,\u00a0<\/span>The Complete Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
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\u201cThe fields are black and ploughed, and they lie like a great fan before us, with their furrows gathered in some hand beyond the sky, spreading forth from that hand, opening wide apart as they come toward us, like black pleats that sparkle with thin, green spangles.\u201d\u00a0
\u2015\u00a0Ayn Rand<\/a>,\u00a0Anthem<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
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dirt<\/a>,\u00a0farming<\/a>,\u00a0land<\/a><\/div>\n
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\u201cThe soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life.\u201d\u00a0
\u2015\u00a0Wendell Berry<\/a>,\u00a0The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
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agriculture<\/a>,\u00a0farming<\/a>,\u00a0soil<\/a><\/div>\n
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\u201cThe ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.\u201d\u00a0
\u2015\u00a0Masanobu Fukuoka<\/a>,\u00a0The One-Straw Revolution<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
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alan skeoch<\/div>\n
august 2018<\/div>\n
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HORSES WERE BETTER THAN TRACTORS (LET ME TELL YOU WHY) alan skeoch august 2018 PLOWING IS AS ANCIENT AS CIVILIZATION\u2026MAYBE 6,000 YEARS OLD \u201cThis painting on \u00a0an Egyptian tomb shows a farmer encouraging two skinny cows to pull a \u00a0tiny stir plow.\u201d \u201cStir plow?\u201d \u201cYep\u2026early plows were really just tough tree roots \u00a0fashioned \u00a0to a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-1576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-6"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1576"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1619,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1576\/revisions\/1619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}